


until we go down

by finalizer_archive



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Breakup Sex, F/M, Missing Scene, kind of.. technically, not a healthy relationship dynamic smh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-13 23:59:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17497787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finalizer_archive/pseuds/finalizer_archive
Summary: Even perfect matches burn.





	until we go down

**Author's Note:**

> — set in the 3 min time window between the scene in the hotel lobby and violet's rooftop errand (naturally, i expanded that time window for uh reasons)

* * *

T ****he key clicked in the lock and they piled into the suite one by one, Carmelita shoving past to be the first inside.

The door shut and within seconds the happy family guise slipped away. Olaf’s neutral grimace morphed into a scowl and he stalked off towards the window at the far end of the room.

Carmelita was bursting at the seams following the suffocating minute and a half of serene silence during the elevator ride upstairs.

“And now can we go to the pool?” she demanded.

“Just a moment, darling. First we’re going to have to — ”

“You promised me we’d go to the pool,” Carmelita interrupted. She stomped her perfectly polished shoes on the carpeted floor and pouted in a way she probably thought came off as intimidating.

Esmé fixed her with a placating smile. “Why don’t you get changed into your new outfit and go yell at the concierges in the lobby to hurry up with your boat?”

A gleeful grin broke out on Carmelita’s face. She clapped her hands together in malicious delight and skipped towards the suitcases standing neatly by the door to fetch her costume. It was eerie how efficient the service was at the Hotel Denouement — the two heavy, leather-bound suitcases had been swiftly delivered to their suite in the short time it took for the elevator to reach their floor with no sign of anybody slipping in or out of the room.

Carmelita grabbed her new outfit and held the bundle to her chest with one hand while adjusting her pirate hat atop her curls with the other. She flashed a toothy smile at Esmé and ran off in search of an unoccupied room to change in.

She disappeared behind the set of ornate mahogany doors that led to the living room and a brief moment later a distant door slammed shut somewhere within the suite and everything fell silent once more.

Esmé distractedly ran her tongue over her teeth, then snapped back to attention and turned her sights on Olaf.

He was standing in front of an antique mirror near the window, finger combing his hair out of the atrocious mess he’d slicked it into as a part of his disguise. He’d taken off his appalling loafers and knee socks, tossed the fanny pack aside, but the nightmarish shirt remained.

Esmé watched him struggle with a nasty knot at the nape of his neck. She said nothing. She was always the one to speak up first. Olaf never bothered talking about his problems, or their problems, or anyone else’s. When the stress became too much, he’d drink. When the anger became too much, he’d shout. When everything became too much, Esmé would lead him towards the nearest flat surface and make him forget. But he never talked.

Esmé tossed her handbag onto a nearby plush armchair with little regard for the contents inside. She undid the straps around her ankles and kicked off her shoes, making a face at the odd feeling of the carpet beneath her bare feet. Hotels were disgusting. _Carpeted_ hotels belonged in the deepest ring of hell.

It was unexpected, how soon Carmelita pranced back into the room. She was now donned head to toe in her newest personality quirk.

“I’m a ball-playing cowboy superhero soldier pirate,” she announced.

Olaf pointedly ignored her presence.

“And you look adorable,” Esmé assured her. “Now run downstairs and make sure they’re being careful with your boat. I’ll slip into something more fitting and meet you on the rooftop in just a moment.”

Carmelita huffed in a theatrical display of annoyance. “Just don’t take too long.”

With that, she made enthusiastic finger gun motions at Esmé, true to her cowboy-superhero-whatever ensemble, and twirled around towards the exit.

She slammed the door shut behind herself with little regard for the remainder of the guests staying on their floor. It was very villainous. Esmé felt a surge of pride.

It dissipated quickly enough when she shot another sidelong glance at Olaf. He was no doubt planning on sulking, then changing into his Jacques Snicket disguise without a word, and sulking some more before heading off to terrorize volunteers.

She had to break the silence, as per usual.

“We’re not going to talk?”

Olaf craned his head to frown at Esmé before turning back to his task.

“About?”

His tone implied he knew exactly what they ought to talk about. He was being obtuse on purpose.

“You know perfectly well what I'm talking about,” Esmé grit out.

Olaf dropped his hands to his sides in exasperation and turned to properly face Esmé for the first time since they’d entered the room.

He stared her down. “What, pray tell.”

They stood like that for an inordinate amount of time. It was deathly quiet, aside from a single mildly disconcerting yelp from the hallway outside. Eventually, Olaf raised his brows inquisitively and swung his arms in a careless shrug. “What?” he repeated.

“This,” Esmé said, “us.”

“What about us?” Olaf asked absently. He then blinked and pulled his fake glasses off his face like he’d only just realized they were still there. He tossed them in the general direction of the windowsill and missed horribly. 

“We spend more time fighting than we do getting along. That’s never a good sign for us,” Esmé clarified.

Olaf clenched his jaw. He needed a drink and then some to stand around discussing whatever it was she wanted to discuss.

“Sweetheart, we always fight,” he said. “We’ve never gone a day without disagreeing. Literally ever.”

“It feels wrong this time.”

They stood at opposite ends of the room. The distance between them was as literal as it was figurative. The tension hung heavy in the air and Olaf respectfully gave it a moment to do so before sighing and turning back to the mirror. His hair was hopeless. He tilted his head and considered he could comb it back into a prissier, greasier version of Snicket. It would suit the penciled-on mustache he had in mind.

“Olaf,” came Esmé’s voice from behind. “Look at me.”

He shot a look at her reflection in the mirror. She was rooted to her spot by the door, hands at her sides, distractedly toying with the hem of her dress. She could never keep her fingers still when she was anxious.

The only way to placate her was to give her exactly what she wanted. She was impossible like that. And Olaf cursed himself for always wanting to give in to her whims.

He turned. “We have no time for this. There’s a cocktail party to plan. I need to find Ernest, and make sure Frank doesn’t get in the way. You need to watch the skies. Your sweet little girl needs to shoot down a crow. We can talk later.”

“Right,” Esmé said numbly, “of course we can. We can talk tonight, assuming we make it that far.”

“You — ” Olaf started, then clamped his mouth shut. He failed to suppress his inward groan, and crossed the room in a few long strides to where Esmé was standing. He figured it would be easier to read between the lines if he came a little bit closer.

As expected, her eyes betrayed more than her tone. The way she looked up at him was a challenge in itself, one which he accepted.

“What do you want?”

Esmé held his gaze, her chest rising and falling with erratic breaths. There was so much she wanted to say, perhaps scream, and so little time to say it. In fact, she had no time at all to say it. It was simpler, when her words failed her, to act on her feelings instead.

She swallowed and brought her hands up to Olaf’s shirt. She didn’t bother asking for permission before undoing the first button, then the second.

“First, this atrocity comes off.”

“Esmé,” Olaf said. It was somewhere between a plea and a warning.

“Don’t talk,” she snapped.

Olaf’s brows shot up. He tried to step back and swat Esmé’s hands away from his shirt but her grip was unyielding. “ _Don’t_ _talk_? You were just whining about how we don't talk and now you have the audacity — ”

The corner of Esmé’s mouth quirked up in a humorless smile. “That was before I remembered that you’re impossible to talk to most of the time, and that your talents lie elsewhere.”

Olaf couldn’t say he was surprised by this turn of events. With Esmé, this was always a possibility. It was one of the things he loved about the damn woman, however infuriating she could be.

It did little to change the fact that her hands on his shoulders, slipping his shirt off, were a cheap last resort to set them back on the right track.

Whatever it was between them was crumbling again. It’d happened before, over and over, whenever the delicate balance between tender touches and violent screaming matches tipped the wrong way. Even so, Olaf had to admit it'd taken them less time than usual to get on each other’s nerves this time around. It was another item on the long list of his misfortunes to blame the damn orphans for.

“You think that’s going to work? Fucking this relationship back together?”

“It’s worked before,” Esmé said distractedly. Her hands were wrapped around the back of his neck, her thumbs nestled in the hollows of his jaw. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“There’s too much at stake. It’s not just this, now. It’s everything,” Olaf countered, trying to keep his voice level as Esmé’s nails raked over his skin. “The brats, their fortune, the hoards of volunteers swarming this wretched hotel, the banker I need to steal a set of documents from, the damn party and the mycelium, the crows, the sugar — ”

“Just for a moment,” Esmé interrupted. “Forget it all for a moment.”

“I’m a tad bit preoccupied with the notion of total annihilation,” Olaf insisted. It was a lie. She’d already managed to distract him.

“If it all goes to hell we might not get another chance.”

“It won’t,” he reasoned. “We have it all figured out.”

Esmé finally looked up at him.

The juxtaposition was glaring. Olaf certainly did have his future all figured out, though his future was limited to his evil scheme. He must have missed the part where Esmé was more concerned with the growing chasm between them.

Olaf wasn’t too dense to see that there was something amiss. Of course he’d said the wrong thing. Esmé’s eyes were glazed over in that way they tended to be before she broke down, but there was hardness to her face as well, a resigned sort of acceptance.

His instinctive yet utterly disingenuous apology was interrupted when Esmé tugged him down to her height and caught him in a rough kiss. Olaf stumbled and cursed against her lips, because of course they were going through with this, despite the warning signs. It was preferable to talking, at least. Shaking off the tension was more fun this way.

Esmé dragged her palms down, laying them flat against Olaf’s chest, and it was like a switch flipped inside him.

His hands came up to cup Esmé’s face. He kissed her deeply, giving as good as he got, stepping forward and closing the gap between them.

There were things he wanted to say, too. He could never get his point across quite as eloquently as her, of course, so he settled for trailing his fingers against her cheeks, desperately drawing her closer to show, rather than tell, everything he couldn’t find the words for.

Esmé pulled away enough to mutter, “Get my dress, would you?”

Olaf wasted no time in complying, blindly reaching back to undo the zipper. It wasn’t an easy task. He couldn’t see what he was doing; Esmé’s lips were on his again and her fingers were trailing down his abdomen and everything was hot and painfully familiar, the rush of blood in his ears all too deafening. Every damn time they started this he never wanted to stop.

He dragged his other hand lower, wrapping it around Esmé’s throat and applying just enough pressure to coax a choked sigh from her lips. He took another step forward and she took a stumbling step back, and again, until he had her crowded against the door and her back hit the wood with an echoing thud. The low sound she made against his lips was wholly inappropriate and loud enough for anybody passing through the corridor to hear. Being rude to fellow hotel guests was always good fun but somebody was bound to come knocking if they took the lazy way out and fucked against the front door, and being disturbed wasn’t an option.

Esmé’s nails dug into Olaf’s hips and she pushed him away but didn’t relinquish her bruising grip. “I’m sure there’s a bedroom in here somewhere.”

The flimsy zipper finally gave way and Olaf tugged it all the way down. His fingers dropped from her neck and his other hand came up to slip her dress over her shoulders and pull it down over her arms. It fell away soundlessly and pooled around her feet. She kicked it aside. She hated the thing with a passion.

Esmé grabbed at Olaf again, hauling him close once more. He brushed her hair aside and ducked his head down to trail kisses down her neck and over her throat. She always smelled impossibly good, however many hours they spent crammed into an undersized car or traversing desolate landscapes for days on end. He kissed lower still, and the arm Esmé had wrapped around him tightened, nails digging into the skin of his back so sharply he was certain she drew blood.

“Bedroom,” she repeated breathlessly.

She dragged her nails up his back and Olaf felt himself tense up. Her fingers tangled in his hair and she made a half hearted attempting at yanking him upright. Olaf stubbornly wouldn’t budge.

“Princess, we do not have all the time in the world.”

Esmé gave another tug and Olaf winced and finally pulled away.

She was looking up at him. She had her bottom lip between her teeth and her lipstick was smudged; she looked wrecked and they’d hardly even started anything.

“Do you ever really need _that_ much time, though?” she countered.

Olaf took a moment to look properly affronted and Esmé seized the opportunity to slip out of his grasp and cross the room to the grand double doors on the far left side.

He watched her disappear into the master bedroom, her hair swishing across her bare back. He had the sudden irresistible urge to wrap his fingers into it and pull, and kiss her whimpers from her lips.

His legs moved of their own accord and he crossed the threshold of the bedroom before he was even aware he’d done it.

Esmé was on him in an instant, hands reaching for the fastenings of his pants as she backed him against the foot of the bed. He reached out for the nearest bedpost to steady himself. They'd done this too many time to count over the years, since they were barely old enough to drink, rough hands and teeth on skin, yet somehow the exhilaration never wore off. The spark was always there, simmering beneath the surface.

Esmé pulled his trousers over his hips and shoved him backwards onto the bed before he could react.

He sat down hard and Esmé took his face in her hands and tilted it up to meet hers. He brought a hand up to her waist to steady her as she climbed atop the bed, straddling his lap, without once breaking the kiss. Olaf took hold of her hips hard enough to leave bruises, and Esmé answered with an unintelligible sigh. Their movements were practiced, fingers ghosting over familiar angles. It was always rewarding to know that no matter how grim things got between them, they still had this effect on each other.

Esmé rolled her hips against him and Olaf’s fingers dug painfully into her skin. The marks would be there for days. Whatever happened, she was still his. And he was hers. They were the only ones who ever truly understood each other, all the twisted thoughts and desires, and everything in between. But ultimately, that was a silly, romantic notion. It mattered very little in the long run.

He ran his hands up her stomach, over her breasts, nestled them around her jawline with surprising tenderness, coaxing her impossibly closer, open mouthed kisses and insistent movements betraying a longing for closeness beyond the physical. 

His fingers slipped into her hair; it was as soft as it looked. She was driving him crazy. Touching her always unravelled the last remnants of his composure.

“That’s enough of that,” he muttered, “come on.”

He leaned back and laid flat against the mattress, his legs still hanging off the edge of it. Esmé hovered over him, the morning light from beyond the partially undone curtains at the end of the room casting an unearthly glow around her, like a malevolent shadow. It was very fitting.

“Come here” he beckoned, and Esmé leaned down to kiss him again. He wrapped an arm around her midriff and pulled her down, using the momentum to flip them around so she was sprawled across the dark sheets, her hair spread around her like a golden halo.

He could never quite describe the way she looked up at him — impatient and reverent, commanding and submissive all at once. Perhaps that was why he could never let her go despite all the bullshit they dragged each other through. She was a puzzle he had yet to figure out.

“Here you are dragging it out,” Esmé drawled. She was an incorrigible tease. “Were you not just whining about how dreadfully little time we have — ”

He cut her off with a firm kiss.

“Now, that’s better,” she murmured against his lips.

It was the low tone of her voice that snapped the last thread holding together any semblance of self control he may have had.

Olaf moved, trailing messy kisses down her chest. Esmé's hands came up to desperately grab at his hair in a wonderfully painful grip at the back of his head. He had half a mind to pry her hands away and pin them over her head if only to watch her struggle against him, but he had priorities, and now was not the time.

He dragged open mouthed kisses down her chest, grazing his teeth across the sensitive skin. Esmé’s back arched off the bed and he pressed her back down with a firm push at her hip. It was always impossibly gratifying, how responsive she was. This time around it came with the inexplicable thrill of having this effect on her no matter how upset she was with him. Though as much as he might’ve tried, he couldn’t deny what she was doing to him in turn.

With his other hand he took hold of the lace of her panties and tugged them down, making a conscious effort to make as little contact with her skin as possible. He knew he was getting on her nerves, and the idea delighted him. And yet, she instinctively raised her hips to ease the way, to press him on, to urge him to get the hell on with it.

He kissed lower still over her stomach, stopping short of just where she wanted his mouth the most. He pulled away and sat back, reveling in the whimper Esmé let slip.

Her hands dropped away to her sides and she propped herself up on her elbows to properly glare at him.

She looked like sin incarnate, if slightly more pouty, slightly more murderous. The scheme could wait. Every goddamn thing could wait. Losing a few valuable minutes was worth it to take her apart like this.

He dragged his fingers down the undersides of her thighs and her legs parted reflexively. He dragged it out on purpose, precious seconds ticking away as he refused to give Esmé exactly what she wanted.

“Darling,” she said.

Olaf hummed in response, a bored, uninterested sound.

“Olaf,” she warned, and _that_ he could work with.

He positioned himself between her legs and leaned over her once more, close enough to feel the heat of her body but far enough to keep her on edge.

She muttered his name once more, barely audible and wretchedly desperate.

He pushed her flat onto the bed with one hand splayed across her chest. Esmé’s breath caught in her throat and he leaned down to kiss her jaw in a final act of stubborn defiance, refusing to meet her lips when she craved it most. The frustrated sound she made was a reward in itself and Olaf finally, blessedly complied when she turned her head to meet him halfway. The hand he had on her chest moved upwards until his fingers were wrapped around her throat. He covered her mouth with his and kissed her hard to muffle her groan when he pushed inside her.

Her arms automatically snapped up to grab at him, touch him, pull him against her; she wrapped herself around him, one hand at the base of his neck to hold him close, the other dragging across his back, her nails cutting lines into his skin, dancing the line between teasing and outright painful.

Olaf didn’t spare her anything, and she very clearly didn’t want him to. He set a vicious pace; her thighs clenched around him, and he felt his pulse quicken. Her breath was hot against his skin, and the nails digging into his back drawing blood, making everything sharper, crueler.

Esmé maneuvered him into a kiss with a rough tug of his hair. She was provoking him. 

She bit at his lip as if to confirm that particular suspicion.

Every now and again she wanted to be revered and caressed and called pretty names, while he played with her hair and whispered sugarcoated nothings against her lips. Other times she wanted him to hurt her.

With a particularly rough thrust he increased the pressure on her throat and felt her lips quirk up in a dangerous smile against his.

Her hands came down to cup his face none too gently, manhandling him, kissing him the way she wanted to be kissed. It was filthy and it was spectacular, and Olaf most certainly couldn’t allow her to grow so bold.

He released her throat without warning and caught her by surprise, taking hold of both her wrists with one hand and slamming her hands back onto the mattress above her head.

On instinct, she made a weak attempt at jerking away if only to test the strength of his grip.

“Bastard.”

He answered her with a particularly sharp jerk of his hips and watched her eyes screw shut and her lips fall open in a silent cry.

He brought his other arm up to the first and took one of Esmé’s hands in each of his, intertwining their fingers and bracing himself on the bed, deepening the angle and reveling in the way she shivered against him.

He hovered over her, so close their lips brushed with every push; her fingers tightened around his, and she held on like he was the only thing keeping her afloat. He could hardly understand how she felt so small underneath him, not at all like the grand persona she wore for the outside world to see like a mask. This was the Esmé only he knew — sharp, cruel, but vulnerable beneath her cold exterior.

He brushed against a spot inside her that sent her arching sharply off the bed, body bending up to meet his. He could feel the tension rippling through her, every muscle screaming with protest at how desperately she wanted to grab at him and how much it frustrated her that she couldn’t. And how much she fucking loved it that she couldn’t.

It all didn’t take much. There was days worth of explosive restlessness between them, all raging anger and pressure, and so many cruel words left unsaid just waiting to burst through at the opportune moment. This was all they could afford right now, one last attempt at piecing them back together in the only way they knew how.

Esmé’s breathless whispers and unintelligible moans were ceaseless, they spurred Olaf on and made every nerve in his body feel like it’d been doused in kerosene and set aflame.

He buried his head in the crook of her neck and grit out her name against her skin. She was his undoing as much as he was hers, despite his best intentions, as per goddamn usual.

Her thighs shaking, Esmé jerked up against him and her hands twitched in his grasp. She was close. He released her arms and steadied himself on the mattress beside her head instead, his other hand going down between them, in between her legs. She choked out a gasp that may have been his name, and then her hands were on him in an instant, everywhere, overwhelmingly all at once and the heat grew to a crescendo. He came with an incoherent groan, his lips against her neck, and stilled for a few seconds to catch his breath before giving it a few more thrusts, riding it out, his fingers rubbing against her as she trembled beneath him.

Esmé’s back snapped off the bed, and she clenched around him with a soundless open mouthed gasp, throwing her head back in a flurry of golden curls. Olaf kissed at the exposed skin of her neck, messy and impossibly gentle until she fell back against the mattress, breathless, her head dropping against the pillows.

She met his eyes and he brought his hand up to brush her hair out of her face in an uncharacteristically tender gesture. Her tongue darted out over her lips and Olaf couldn’t resist leaning down to kiss her again. She sighed sharply when he pulled out, and he collapsed on top of her, thoroughly drained. He rested his head atop her chest and Esmé wrapped an arm around him, carding her fingers through his hair. It was quiet and it was perfect for a brief moment that was altogether far too short.

He could feel her heart racing, her chest rising and falling with erratic breaths. He wanted to tell her she was remarkable, maybe utter those three forbidden words he only ever said when his brain-to-mouth filter wasn’t functioning at top capacity. He appreciated her and everything she did for him, everything she was for him more than he could say, and he knew he ought to tell her so. But there were more important things at stake.

He knew how easy it would be to fall asleep in her arms, relaxed and safe, without anything to worry about for once in his damn life.

And that was exactly why he couldn’t give in to her. If he did, he’d never leave.

He gave it a minute, maybe two, of Esmé’s nails against his scalp, her heartbeat echoing in his ears, before taking a deep breath and exhaling sharply.

“The clock is ticking,” he said.

Esmé made a quiet disgruntled sound.

He went on, “The Hotel Denouement awaits us.”

Esmé’s fingers stilled.

“Of course it does.”

Because of course it wasn’t any different. They didn’t patch anything back together. They were going back to where they’d started, back to square one, resuming the plan like there’d been no interruptions.

Esmé closed her eyes and breathed in, memorizing how it all felt right then, anything and everything, like it was the last time.

“Just another minute,” she muttered.

Her fingers moved through his hair again, slow andreassuring, like it would keep him in her arms.

Olaf grumbled something incoherent and shifted. He readjusted his hold on her waist, but didn’t get up just yet. He absently traced his thumb across her skin, a nagging restlessness cutting through the contentment he was feeling.

“Your precious little girl is eagerly awaiting your arrival, dearest. I have a disguise to put on and a banker to torment. And that’s only the beginning of our problems.”

They had a hotel full of troubles on their plate. It made whatever was going on between them seem minuscule, irrelevant. It still hurt like hell.

“We’ll make it work,” Esmé lied. To him, to herself.

“We always do,” came the response, and Olaf made to get up.

Esmé opened her eyes, and time resumed. The end ticked nearer.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](http://twitter.com/finaiizer) & [tumblr](http://esmesqualor.tumblr.com)


End file.
